Jim Devine: Will the Homes and Communities Agency have a remit over land maintenance companies? As chair of the all-party group looking at land maintenance and factoring companies, I have been inundated with complaints from all parts of the House about how factoring and land maintenance companies are treating their customers. That includes companies such as Greenbelt, which this week is using a debt collection agency to take money off my constituents who have refused to pay for an inadequate service. Will that be part of the body's remit?

Sadiq Khan: Again, this may not please hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, but it is for local authorities to decide whether enforcement action should be taken, what enforcement action should be taken, and how that is carried out. The example of Dale farm is one in which enforcement action is being taken by Basildon district council. I know that my hon. Friend has highlighted the fact that vulnerable people—the very young, children and disabled people—are involved there, and I hope the council will take on board the concerns that she has expressed and make sure that it deals sensitively with the people affected.

John Healey: The hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Select Committee on Business and Enterprise so well, has a persuasive way of putting his arguments. I am glad that he supports our small business rate relief, which we introduced three years ago. He is right that it is valuable for small businesses; last year it was worth about £260 million. We are considering whether some degree of automatic operation of the system may be the right way of doing this—and as he knows, his Bill would not achieve that. We think that such action is right, and we are looking at the case for it alongside other measures that may help businesses in other ways, particularly at this difficult time.

Employment Retention

William Cash: The Minister may know that a number of Conservative Members believe that control is essential, but that control orders themselves are defective. Does he not agree that the real problem is the intertwining of control orders with the human rights legislation and that it would be far more effective if we gave people fair trials, followed due process and adhered to habeas corpus, while ensuring at the same time that the House is able to legislate on its own terms to deal with those very real problems, which I fully acknowledge exist, as the Minister said?

Vernon Coaker: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point and I know that there is no disagreement among any of us about the need to tackle people who threaten our way of life. I accept that absolutely, but I also accept that there is disagreement among and between us as to the correct balance between protecting our civil liberties and doing so in a proper way that is consistent with human rights.
	The Government's view—and it is my view—is that control orders actually plug a gap. In that sense, nobody is in favour of control orders if we could possibly do without them, but they plug a gap in circumstances where we cannot prosecute and we cannot deport. That is the gap we are trying to fill. The hon. Member for Stone made a point about human rights legislation. All along the line we have tried to ensure that what we do is consistent with such legislation. Various court judgments have been issued, and I shall say more about that in a moment, but I am well aware that we have only an hour and a half for debate and many Members wish to contribute.
	We take our cue from what the courts say. No doubt more will be said about the European Court of Human Rights later, but the House of Lords said in October 2007 that the control order regime was not unlawful; and in October 2008 the Court of Appeal reconsidered that and once again concluded that what we were doing was right. As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is subject to an appeal in the House of Lords, which is ongoing. The European Court of Human Rights judgment, to which he alludes, will inform that debate, but with the use of special advocates—and our ability to provide various other safeguards—we believe that a reasonable compromise is being made between protecting the public and ensuring that human rights are respected.

Edward Leigh: If one in five people are absconding and not being found, that raises the suspicion that they do not pose a serious threat, because the Government, or the authorities, do not appear to be making the effort to find them that one would expect.

Vernon Coaker: My right hon. Friend makes a point that a number of hon. Members across the House have repeated. That is why the Chilcot review has been set up. Highly esteemed Members of this House, from all the main political parties, are considering whether what my right hon. Friend suggests is possible. No doubt many of the points made by my right hon. Friend will be considered by that review.
	Prosecution has been, and continues to be, our preferred approach, because terrorists are criminals who attack the values that we all share. In 2008, 51 people were convicted in 18 terrorism cases, with 21 individuals pleading guilty. Those figures underline the considerable success that the police and intelligence agencies have had in disrupting terrorist plots, and that the Crown Prosecution Service has had in prosecuting those individuals.
	We remain absolutely committed to enhancing the ability to prosecute terrorists. Thus, the Home Office is taking work forward to implement the recommendations in last year's Privy Council review report on the use of intercept as evidence. However, the report explained that in a review of nine control order cases by independent senior criminal counsel the use of intercept as evidence would not have enabled criminal prosecutions in any of those cases—in other words, it would not have made any practical difference.
	Where we cannot prosecute suspected terrorists, and the individual concerned is a foreign national, we look to detain and then deport them. Last month's House of Lords judgments in three cases, including that of the Jordanian Abu Qatada, demonstrated that the Government's policy of deportation with assurances is compatible with the European convention on human rights.

John Reid: May I place it on the record that I find the orders unsatisfactory? I said that there were so many flaws with them that it was like trying to keep soup in a sieve but, unlike some on the Conservative Benches I wish to see the regime strengthened in order to protect the public, rather than weakened.

Crispin Blunt: My right hon. and learned Friend naturally anticipates the point that I am about to make. However, let me return briefly to Lord Carlile, because for some reason he did not return to the issue in his fourth report. Perhaps he got fed up with repeating himself and with the Government's not paying any attention. I have established by parliamentary question, answered on 12 February, that two controlees have now been under orders for more than three years and three for between two and three years. That figure could have been as high as nine had six of those subject to orders between April 2006 and February 2007 not absconded. The conclusion is that the Government have not bothered satisfactorily to remedy the situation, despite requests from us and the independent reviewer to do so.
	When I was appointed to this post just over a month ago, I was conscious that, unusually, this was not about the Opposition making a statement but was likely to be a decision about the conduct of Government policy. If the Conservative party opposes these orders, the Government, with their majority, will probably carry the day in this place. However, that will probably not be the case in the other place, which will address the issue of renewal on Thursday. As the Government have to convince both Houses and as these powers expire on 11 March, they would have to have an alternative monitoring scheme in place for the 15 individuals within 40 days. Is an operational plan in place if Parliament declines the Government's request for renewal? Any alternative plan would presumably involve appropriate levels of surveillance, helped by the fact that much of it will not have to be covert as the target will anticipate that his activities will be monitored.
	Can we assume that not all the measures have to be new? Presumably there is already additional surveillance of the individuals in addition to the control order measures, not least because of the high proportion of absconders. We know that comprehensive surveillance is expensive and human resource intensive, and that it will require an appropriate plan for each individual. To achieve equivalence with a control order regime, however, foolproof surveillance is not the standard as a fifth of those subject to control orders have absconded.
	The control order regime is also expensive. We have some idea of the cost from the answer given to my question yesterday. The cost of elements of the control order regime that I identified was more than £3 million without the cost of the supervision arrangements or the costs of the control order review group. The current arrangement is costing well over £200,000 a year per controlee.
	Control orders should be assessed in the context of the whole counter-terrorism strategy, as well as in the context of the financial cost. I believe that they do damage to the "prevent" element of the strategy because of the message of oppression that they impart to those vulnerable to being suborned into violence against our state, its institutions and people. Have the Government conducted an impact assessment of the control order regime on vulnerable communities? The Minister's answer to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) suggested that their assessment is based more on talks with the communities, but I think that something rather more rigorous is required.
	Control orders also damage our wider sense of security because of the exceptional measures that are viewed by the Government as necessary. They do damage to the basic notion of British liberty and the values we seek to defend. As for the benefits, they are a temporary patch on a hole in our defences that has been created because we have not yet had the wit to find a way to convict or deport people we believe to be associated with terrorism. If we were not so close to a general election, I would not hesitate to recommend to my right hon. and hon. Friends that we vote against these measures and rip this patch off because, in isolation, the system of control orders is defective.
	Such a recommendation would come in spite of the natural wish of a patriotic party in opposition to give the Government the benefit of the doubt when they claim that national security at stake. The difficulty that we face is that, in one disreputable episode after another, the Government have forfeited any benefit of the doubt on their most sacred responsibility, which is to keep the nation safe. They do not need to take that from me, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) expressed the sentiment eloquently last week, following the statement on the non-release of Cabinet minutes relating to the decision on the Iraq war.
	I have to say that I share the hon. Gentleman's sentiments. Coming to the view that we should not obstruct the renewal of the measures today is not about giving this exhausted and discredited Administration the benefit of the doubt, but about finding the most appropriate way to prepare for the likely exercise of these responsibilities by June next year.
	I do not know the result of the next election. It would be both impertinent and unwise to presume on the electorate, but I think they would expect an aspirant Administration preparing to take on responsibility for counter-terrorism and security policies to treat the prospect with the utmost seriousness. Therefore, my analysis is based on the assumption that we will be faced with those responsibilities by June next year.
	Our counter-terrorism legislation is at best a bureaucratic mess, and at worst has powers that make the situation worse. Let us consider just how we have arrived at this point: the Terrorism Act 2000 was followed by the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which was implemented in a hurry after 9/11. Further legislation in 2003 made amendments to the 2000 Act, while the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was required after the 2001 Act was found to be inconsistent with the Human Rights Act 1998. Then the Terrorism Act 2006 was implemented in the post-7/7 environment, and after that came the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. Throw in two Northern Ireland Acts for good measure and we have as confusing a pot pourri as any lawyer could desire. It has presented us with the ridiculous juxtaposition of Abu Qatada receiving a deportation order one day, and compensation the next. The warning about the opportunity being created issued by my hon. and learned Friend the shadow Justice Secretary has been fully justified.
	The case for consolidation is overwhelming, and it was made by a Labour Home Secretary more than three years ago. On 2 February 2006, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) said that he intended to
	"plan for the development of a draft Bill that takes into account all the work that I have laid out to be published in the first half of 2007 for pre-legislative scrutiny."—[ Official Report, 2 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 479.]
	The 2008 Act dealt with little of the work that he referred to. No progress was made on intercept as evidence, and no change arose from the review of the operation of control order. Therefore, the overwhelming case is not for consolidation only but also for a full review of the powers that the state has taken.
	The review and consolidation should be comprehensive and not piecemeal. The fact that we are probably within touching distance of being able to complete the review with the benefit of the advice available to a Government has decided me in favour of not removing the patch on the hole in our counter-terrorism strategy that control orders represent. On those grounds, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends not to vote against these orders today, but I want to make it clear to the House that the consolidation and review of counter-terrorism legislation to be carried out by the probable next Administration will begin from the position that we will replace the present control order system. We will also seek to end the abuse of stop-and-search powers under terrorism legislation for non-terrorist-related incidents, and to address controversial offences relating to the distribution of literature and glorification.
	Perhaps most important of all, we will allow intercept to be used as evidence in our courts. Achieving that goal will enable us to deliver to public justice more of the people who seek to murder in pursuit of authoritarian theological and political goals in our open society. Such public justice should help to shake any complacency out of communities where our citizens are under direct threat of being suborned.

Christopher Huhne: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that point. He is absolutely right: the evidentiary standard is particularly low and there is no appeal. It is particularly low because it involves merely a reasonable suspicion on the part of the Home Secretary, which is broadly the evidentiary basis that the Director of Public Prosecutions requires to charge someone with counter-terrorism offences.
	My party argues that control orders breach the right to a fair hearing. A person does not know what they are suspected of. They have a limited ability to challenge and defend themselves, and the Government have said that
	"introducing a requirement always to provide a summary is not appropriate".—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 21 October 2008; Vol. 704, c. 1085.]
	This is surely a truly Kafkaesque situation, in which someone is held without even knowing the gist of the suspicions held against them. That will no doubt be one of the key factors in the case going to the Law Lords, which has been reported this week.
	Furthermore, there is a reliance on secret intelligence, which, by definition, may be all the less reliable for being secret, precisely because sources are not open to scrutiny, cross-examination or challenge. For all we know, intelligence may have been gained through torture around the world; as we know from the recent case of Binyam Mohamed, we unfortunately cannot rule that out.
	Intelligence can be wrong—very wrong. Mistaken identity is a fairly common problem. The most famous example is, of course, Jean Charles de Menezes, but another is that of Lotfi Raissi, the Algerian pilot whose life was ruined by intelligence-fuelled suspicions that ultimately proved to be entirely groundless. The grand chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in A  v. the United Kingdom is the highest court to have looked at these matters, and it states very clearly that its recent decision, and I quote the Joint Committee on Human Rights
	"leaves no room for doubt that basic fairness requires that at the very least the controlled person be provided with the gist of the closed material which supports the allegations made against them".
	A second issue is the sheer interminability of these orders. There are no time limits and control orders can last for long periods. Two current cases have gone on for more than three years. Effectively, that is indefinite detention. Is that really acceptable as part of our criminal justice system?
	Moreover, there is a legal world within a legal world. If someone breaches their control order, they can be prosecuted and convicted. As Lord Carlile points out, three of the current 15 people affected face trials soon for breaching the terms of their orders. Although there is no evidence to bring against them in a court of law on any substantive matter, they have been made subject to a control order, and if they breach it, that becomes a criminal offence. Although they cannot face substantive charges, that is surely Orwellian.
	The passage of time is one reason control orders should not be continued. The danger is that the longer someone is held, the greater is the chance that they are entirely innocent.

Jeremy Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman will have heard my intervention on the Minister. What is his personal assessment of the effect on community relations of the continuation of the control orders and the system behind them?

Andrew Dismore: I rise to speak to my Committee's report—the 14th to be published in this Parliament on counter-terrorism policy. Like every other report, we begin by agreeing with the Government on the importance of the obligations imposed on them by human rights law to take effective steps to protect the public from the real threat of terrorism. However, we have consistently raised a number of human rights concerns about the legislation on control orders. Those concerns include:
	"The lack of opportunity for proper parliamentary scrutiny",
	"The severe extent of the obligations imposed, which have appeared to us to be so restrictive as to amount to the deprivation of liberty",
	as well as the lack of due process, particularly
	"the lack of opportunity to challenge closed material".
	They also include:
	"The seriousness or otherwise of the Government's commitment to prosecution",
	and the lack of an exit strategy.
	The only thing that we welcome is the fact that we got the reviewer's report a month in advance of this debate, following our recommendation—which had been repeated on many occasions—that we should be allowed time to give proper consideration to it.
	The concluding observations of the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the UK's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights included a recommendation that the Government should ensure that the judicial process for challenging the imposition of a control order complies with the principle of equality of arms, which it clearly does not.
	Mention has been made of the ECHR judgment in the Grand Chamber of 19 February. That concerned Belmarsh detainees, but the issues in that case are exactly the same as those affecting control orders. The Court said that special advocates could not perform their function of safeguarding the detainee's interests during closed hearings in any useful way unless the detainee was provided with sufficient information about the allegations against him. We also drew attention to the report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights, published on 17 February, which expresses concern about a "parallel legal system" developing, so undermining the rule of law.
	The orders are punitive. We have seen curfews of up to 16 hours and, on average, they have gone up on from running for 10 hours last year to 13 hours in this report. Lord Brown, who ruled on this, has been misquoted. His actual view, as reported, was:
	"It may be... that 16 hours it is too long. I would, however, leave it to the Strasbourg Court to decide upon that".
	The Government have interpreted that as if he was saying that 16 hours is the benchmark, but that is not what Lord Brown said at all.
	I have many concerns about the issue of due process. We produced a whole series of recommendations when we debated the Counter-Terrorism Bill in the last Session, but, unfortunately, the Government did not accept any of them. I nevertheless urge the Government to consider again at least providing a statement of at least the gist of any closed material in accordance with the decision of the European Court—and, I hope, the forthcoming decision of the House of Lords—as that is the key issue in the case being tried today. The Minister's predecessor offered to meet the special advocates who planned to describe to him the inherent potential unfairness in the regime, but, unfortunately, that Minister did not keep his promise, as he was shifted to another position before, I suspect, he had the opportunity to do so. I hope that the current Minister will undertake to keep that promise.

Andrew Dismore: I am grateful to the Minister for repeating that commitment, as the current system is reminiscent of the infamous Henry VIII Star Chamber court: people are not told the case against them; they are not allowed their own choice of lawyer to defend them; the lawyer does not know the case he has to defend; and, in the end, people are not even provided with the reasons for the decision to subject them to a control order. As we now know from the cases from Belmarsh and others, a control order can mean seven years, which, with proper remission taken into account, is equivalent to a 14-year prison sentence, yet not many terrorism offences carry that weight of penalty. We should bear that in mind.
	Much has been said about intercept. It is a year since the Chilcot inquiry reported and the Prime Minister has given an undertaking to accept the report in principle, so perhaps the Minister will explain why we have as yet seen no outcomes?
	Lord Carlile spoke about the exit strategy last year and repeated what he said this year, but we have no exit strategy. Our Committee recommended, following on from Lord Carlile, that no control order should be continued beyond two years, save in exceptional circumstances. In many cases, these people are no longer a threat. Realistically, what terrorist organisation is going to keep on its books someone who has been in detention of one form or another and subject to scrutiny for that period of time?
	If the President of America is going to close Guantanamo Bay, surely we should adopt the same approach in respect of control orders. We must have an alternative—a human rights compliant alternative. That has been the recommendation of my Committee time and again as a means of dealing with those people of whom we have such fears.

David Davis: If we looked at this issue solely from the point of view of effectiveness against terrorism, it would fail the test. It is no good solving a single problem if that solution creates 100 further problems. A number of hon. Members have made the point that this works to exacerbate radicalisation.
	It is worth considering the size of the problem. When Lady Manningham-Buller made her last speech on the matter, she said there were 1,600 radicals in the country; one year later, Jonathan Evans, then head of MI5, said it was more than 2,000—an enormous number and it is growing at 25 per cent. A year. The reason for that is the perceived injustice by the Muslim community of a number of measures—42 days' detention, 90 days' detention and these control orders. The simple fact is, as the Liberal spokesman said and as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) reiterated, that this is a Kafkaesque process in which people are given almost no knowledge of the evidence and very little knowledge of the accusation.
	The simple fact is that owing to the lack of oversight, injustice is almost certainly common. We know too at least one instance in which MI5 presented the same evidence to support opposing conclusions in two successive hearings of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. That was only discovered because the same defence lawyer was representing two different defendants. As a result, both judgments were overturned, and some coruscating comments were made by Lord Justice Newman at the time.

Gary Streeter: Has my right hon. Friend observed that, according to page 5 of Lord Carlile's excellent report, the control orders of six individuals were revoked because—this is in brackets—
	"the assessment of the necessity of the control order changed"?
	Presumably those individuals were no longer deemed to be a threat. Does my right hon. Friend think that that means that they were reformed terrorists, or that the control orders should not have been issued in the first place?

David Davis: That, of course, is the risk, and it brings us to the issue of the size of the problem. When this piece of law was put in place, we were told by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that "hundreds" of people would be subject to control orders. And what do we find? A maximum of 15 at any one point in time.

David Gauke: My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it. We will have another Finance Bill in the summer that I suspect will involve changes to corporation tax. The rate at which tax law changes is a problem: some changes are unavoidable, but many are not.
	The Bill is concerned with drafting problems and its intention is to make corporation tax law much clearer, but it does so at the expense of volume, as my right hon. Friend noted earlier. However, my main criticism is that it does not address the fundamental problem of tax law complexity. To be fair, it does not attempt to do so, but that is one of its weaknesses.
	Our tax system is widely regarded as overly complex. Professional bodies and business groups such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the manufacturers' organisation EEF and the Chartered Institute of Taxation have all made that point again and again in recent months. It is notable that, when the firm United Business Media relocated from the UK to the Republic of Ireland, it cited tax complexity as one of the reasons behind the move.
	It is also worth reminding the House of the survey undertaken by the Tax Reform Commission in 2006. There were 600 responses from businesses of various sizes: 60 per cent. said that they were increasing spending on tax planning and compliance, and 78 per cent. said that tax complexity had increased in the previous five years. It is therefore clear that we do have a problem with tax complexity.

Jeremy Browne: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute briefly to the debate. So far everyone who has spoken also contributed to Second Reading, so I shall not detain the House for longer than necessary by going over too much ground that has already been covered.
	I, too, place on the record my congratulations and appreciation to Lord Newton of Braintree and others, including outside experts, who contributed to the process and gave a great deal of their time and expertise to assist British business directly by seeking to simplify the corporation tax code. Like the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) and no doubt everyone who participates in the debate, I welcome all attempts to consolidate our corporation taxes, to make the system easier to digest and to simplify the structures.
	I accept, as was pointed out on Second Reading, that we are unlikely ever to reach a situation where the corporation tax code, the rules and regulations, are easily understandable for the man and woman in the street. One could argue that if they were easily understood by the layman, they would probably be insufficiently detailed to serve their function. Nevertheless, it is helpful to have a system that is as simple as possible. That must be good for business at a time when it is seeking to minimise overheads. In legislative terms, it must be good that we do not have to employ, at great expense, huge numbers of people with great expertise, in both the public and private sector, to try to understand what the law means and how it applies to the companies affected. That is not productive endeavour. It is not a wealth-creating process, but all businesses and Government have to participate in that exercise. To the extent that it can be minimised consistent with keeping the law fair in its application, we would all welcome that.
	There is still a long way to go. The United Kingdom has the longest tax code in the world. There are five volumes of the Bill and four volumes of explanatory notes. There are 1,330 clauses divided into 21 parts. Following the intervention from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), I calculated that if there are 21 days between the law coming into effect and possibly being overtaken by events when the Chancellor delivers his Budget in the House, there would be one part to digest every day over the sadly brief three-week lifetime of the Bill—roughly 60 clauses a day with which tax lawyers and accountants had to familiarise themselves before the law potentially became redundant.
	Even in its consolidated form, the Bill is an enormous piece of legislation. There are four schedules divided into 25 parts, the contents list alone is 63 pages long, and at least 33 Acts of Parliament and 16 statutory instruments are affected by the legislation. The table of origins, which details the origin of all the provisions, is 174 pages long, and the table of destinations, which details whether a provision has been rewritten or repealed, is 196 pages long. It is a huge work, which shows what an achievement it was that those experts managed to get to grips with it at all. The idea that as a result we have a tax code that is simple is far from the truth.
	I finish with an observation from the CBI tax task force, which I quoted on Second Reading. It stated:
	"It is ironic that what has followed"—
	since the first Budget of the former Chancellor, now the Prime Minister—
	"has been a decade characterised by unprecedented legislative change in the UK corporate tax system, much of it characterised by a high degree of complexity and inadequate consultation."
	Inasmuch as the work under discussion today is designed to address that problem, it is welcome, but I fear that I share the instincts and observations of many hon. Members when I say that there is much work still to be done.

Peter Viggers: The Bill is important because, as the Corporation Tax Act 2009, it will be the Act that students and practitioners will have to study in future. I hear the right hon. and hon. Members who point out that the Budget of 22 April will overtake some of the contents of the Act, as it is to become, but the Act will endure on the statute book and the Budget of 2009 will only make some changes to it.
	The procedure is unusual, as has been commented on. The Bill was referred to a Joint Committee on Tax Law Rewrite, which I chaired, of hon. Members of this House and Members of the other place. We received a memorandum from the tax law rewrite project team, to whom I join in paying tribute, and we took oral evidence from it. We satisfied ourselves that there had been extensive consultation with representative bodies, and we satisfied ourselves by inquiry that the 106 changes in tax legislation were properly accommodated. The legislation that we are considering is part of the rewrite of corporation tax law, income tax law having already been rewritten. As the Financial Secretary pointed out, the income tax legislation is in rewrite form, whereas the corporation tax legislation is now moving into rewrite form. A second corporation tax Bill is to come before us later this year, followed in due course by a further Bill to deal with international aspects of the law.
	This Corporation Tax Bill deals mainly with income, while the second one later this year will deal mainly with allowances. We on the Committee satisfied ourselves that the House of Commons would have the power to amend the legislation and the ability to scrutinise any changes that had occurred. We satisfied ourselves generally that the Bill should be passed by the House of Commons. I join my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) in saying that the emphasis among legislators and professionals is always to programme towards complexity, whereas the consumer's voice would no doubt plead for simplicity, if possible. I add my voice to my hon. Friend's in pleading for simplicity wherever possible.
	The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) referred to the Bill's 1,330 clauses, 63 pages of contents, 174 pages of tables of origins and 196 pages of tables of destinations. I intend to submit it to the "Guinness Book of Records" as the longest Bill ever, a position that it has taken from the Companies Act 2006. There is, however, a rival: in 1821, this House passed an Act written on 757 membranes of vellum; it would have stretched for 348 m or 382 yd. I suppose one could claim that that Act holds the record, although I would maintain that, having been written on membranes, it is not entirely comparable.
	I confirm that the tax rewrite Committee carried out its duties in the proper form, and I join those who have spoken in this brief debate in commending the Bill to the House.

John Redwood: That may show that they have good tax advisers and are happy to stay here on that basis, or it may show that they are simply not profitable enough because of the general background. I understand why, unfortunately, a lot of companies will not be paying tax in future; it is because of the desperate conditions in which they find themselves.
	We all want fair taxation at a fair level. If I were asked whether the complexity was more or less important than the rate, I would say that the rate is the most important thing. However, complexity is an issue, and complexity allied to too many changes or to too vicarious a system can be extremely worrying. A feeling has built up in some parts of the corporate sector. People are not sure what the law is. Furthermore, there can be changes, through the anti-avoidance and anti-evasion measures strengthened and taken by the Government—sometimes for good reasons—and through judicial or Revenue decisions that try to interpret the rather complex law. That combination of a rate that is no longer that competitive with the legal complexity and too many changes that people cannot understand or do not think were properly heralded, can create uncertainty and lead to companies leaving these shores.
	My worry is that length and complexity go together. It is reassuring to hear the architects tell us that many people want the issues spelt out in detail and that that has now happened in lucid and clear prose so that people can relax and know exactly where they are. I confess that, probably in common with most speakers in this debate, I have read some but not all the Bill. Anyone trying to read it would rapidly come to the conclusion that it is difficult for anybody but an accountant specialising in corporation tax to understand what it means for any given business.
	Let us look at clauses 190 and 191 on page 85. Clause 190 tries to give a basic meaning of "post-cessation receipt". It says that it means
	"a sum...which is received after a person permanently ceases to carry on a trade, and...which arises from the carrying on of the trade before the cessation."
	I can understand that. However, the clause goes on to say:
	"In this Chapter, except in sections 194 and 195, references to a person permanently ceasing to carry on a trade include—
	(a) in the case of a company, the occurrence of an event treated under section 18 of ITTOIA 2005 (companies beginning or ceasing to be within charge to income tax) as the company permanently ceasing to carry on the trade, and
	(b) in the case of a trade carried on by a person in partnership, the occurrence of an event treated under section 246(4) of ITTOIA 2005 (basic meaning of "post-cessation receipt") as the person permanently ceasing to carry on the trade."
	I shall spare the House clause 191, but it is another little gem, citing another series of sections of legislation to which the relevant people have to cross-refer. That little sample of the delights of this reading for insomniacs tells us that the Bill is certainly not a clear and lucid exposé that an intelligent, rational man or woman could read and immediately understand; they would still need to rush to their advisers to try to get to grips with it.
	The Bill gets more exciting in parts; I did not quote one of the most exciting bits. Clause 479, for example, invites us to learn about
	"non-lending relationships not involving discounts".
	The mind boggles at what might be involved in one of those non-lending relationships, but, helpfully, we are told that
	"A company has a relevant non-lending relationship if—
	(a) the company stands, or has stood, in the position of a creditor or debtor in relation to a money debt,
	(b) the money debt did not arise from a transaction for the lending of money...and
	(c) the money debt is one of the kinds mentioned in subsection (2)."
	We then go through five other subsections to clause 479 to try to wrestle with the complicated issue of what a non-lending relationship not involving a discount is. Having passed the GCSE, we can then go on to the scholarship—relevant non-lending relationships involving a discount. These are just samples to show that this law is getting exceedingly complicated.
	One of the clauses that I most like, because it has a topical flavour to it, is clause 524—"Shares subject to outstanding third party obligations". I wonder if when that was written people had in mind our growing shareholdings in the British banking system. It says:
	"This section applies to the share held by the investing company if it...is subject to outstanding third party obligations (see subsection (2)), and...is an interest-like investment...For the purposes of this Chapter a share is subject to outstanding third party obligations if...the share is subject to obligations of a kind specified in subsection (4)...the obligations are...obligations of a person other than the investing company, or...obligations of the investing company which, under any relevant arrangements, will or might be discharged directly or indirectly by any other person, and...the obligations are yet to be discharged...Accordingly, those obligations are the 'third party obligations' in the case of that share...The kinds of obligation"—
	ones with which we are getting very familiar under this Government—
	"are...an obligation to meet unpaid calls on the share"—
	there will be plenty of those—
	"and any other obligation to make a contribution to the capital of the issuing company that could affect the value of the share."
	That is all too poignant and topical. Obviously, people had great foresight in putting in those provisions to deal with the burgeoning volume of cash that we, for no good reason, are tipping into banks that need to sort out their costs and lending policies rather more quickly.
	I should like the Minister to respond to these points of principle about whether we need to continue with this kind of process in future. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport, who has worked valiantly, should be given a different remit on a future piece of legislation, whereby we would see that there is some connection between length and complexity and that the length of a Bill is not necessarily an indication that it is easier to understand or more likely to avoid all kinds of dispute. Lawyers are very clever people. Private sector lawyers tend to get paid rather more than parliamentary draftsmen and public sector lawyers trying to battle against them in terms of such legislation. Far from reducing the number of uncertainties, the longer the Bill, the more causes for action there will be. The more words there are in a Bill, the more it can be challenged in court and the fewer the people who know the true tax base of the country.
	We are in danger of not being able to see the wood for the huge number of trees that have been felled to produce the paper for this legislation. I cannot believe that 821 pages of law to do about the half the job on corporation tax represents the final statement on simplification. I live in some fear that once people have homed in and boned up on this legislation, some 22 days later the Chancellor may wish to make fairly big changes to it. Of course, I understand that it is a founding text for a period of years, but if Chancellors decide to make too many changes to founding texts, that has the added hazard of all the amendments and complications added on top of the 821 pages of law. Surely there is a better way. This will not be welcomed by the business community currently resident in Britain, and I fear that this is not the answer to those who are leaving this country saying the law is too complex.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) claims from a sedentary position that I do not understand the concept of Select Committees. I fully understand and support it. Select Committees are one of the great innovations in the House in the past 20 years. One has only to consider the work of the Treasury Committee in the past few weeks. It was able to do a job of scrutiny that could not be done in the Chamber. That is because Select Committees proceed with independence of mind. Individual members serve in their own right, can pursue the evidence to its logical conclusion and produce a report based on it.  [Interruption.] I see another Select Committee Chair huffing and panting and waiting to intervene.

Alan Duncan: I am happy to concentrate exclusively on the motion. I hope that the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) will therefore forgive me if I write to him on the matter that he has raised.
	We have before us the culmination of a process that was launched by the Leader of the House, who was initially against the regional Select Committees, but who was somehow, miraculously, persuaded to be in favour of them. Indeed, it was on her casting vote that the whole episode was launched. As many hon. Members have said today, this process has not enjoyed cross-party consensus from the start. The structure is enshrined in the motions before us, which nominate only Labour Members of Parliament to the Select Committees that are being set up.
	None the origins of the structure have been accepted by the House in a unified way. In fact, most of the evidence involved was against it. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) has clearly stated that most of the responsibilities to be considered by the Committees are already covered by our existing Select Committee system. Covering the regions with Select Committees is an extension that makes no logical sense. It will involve responsibilities that are cross cutting and messy, and it will place a strain on House resources. Let us take the north as an example. The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) has now gone, but he was arguing that Ministers needed somehow to be held to account. The north—and the north-east in particular—is crawling with Labour Members, and if they cannot hold their own Ministers to account, they need to examine their own effectiveness as Members.
	On the back of this agenda, the Government appointed regional Ministers, but no one really knows who they are, and we know even less about what they do. They were originally to be questioned in the House, but that has never happened. What are they doing anyway? In which Department do they sit? For what are they responsible? The document, "The Governance of Britain", says that regional Ministers, who are supposedly to be held to account by these Select Committees, do all sorts of important things. It sets out their responsibilities, stating that they "represent", "facilitate", "champion" and again "represent" various things in the document. But do they decide anything? No, they do not. These Ministers are fictitious Ministers, supposedly joining up the various tentacles of government and somehow making a Minister in one Department tie his or her decisions in with those of a Minister in another Department. The people who should be held to account, if that is necessary, are the Ministers who take those decisions, not these supposed facilitators who have no executive responsibility whatever. They are faux Ministers—false Ministers—and they do not really exist as Ministers at all.
	In addition to the nonsense of regional Ministers, we have seen the collapse of the regional assemblies—another part of the great regional apparatus falling to bits. We are also seeing, as the shadow Leader of the House has said—

John Redwood: My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he accept that, in the south-east—a non-region that evokes no loyalty or sense of regionalism—we want to see the quangos abolished and any sensible powers and money given to elected local government, where there is an accountability structure already in existence?

Alan Duncan: The creation of Select Committees to hold the Executive to account has been a positive development in the House. However, the original model was designed to ensure that the structure of a Select Committee shadowed, matched, mirrored and scrutinised a particular Department. So, for each Department of State, running through the ranks of Secretary of State and Minister and all the civil servants in that Department, there was a Select Committee to whom those people would be accountable through investigations and reports. The structure of the regional Select Committees, however, fires off in all sorts of directions and is a complete administrative mess. To appoint Members of Parliament to the Committees, as is proposed in the motions, would be to enshrine an absolutely chaotic structure. They will not shadow any Departments, and they will fire in all sorts of directions in ways that will never come together.
	When there is an imbalance in the House, as there is now—although I hope that it will swing the other way in due course—it is difficult for the Opposition, and particularly for a smaller party such as the Liberal Democrats, to find sufficient numbers of people to cover the ground, alongside all the other Select Committees and responsibilities involved. It is therefore unreasonable to have the number of Select Committees growing like Topsy, yet this measure would add eight to the existing number. It looks like a job creation scheme for Labour Members who seem not to have enough to do. At least the House took the decision not to pay the Chairmen.

David Heath: I am most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I will soon reach the end of my opening and introductory remarks on the subject. I was hoping to point out to the House that the structure before us and the membership that we are appointing have come about as a result of a decision in the Modernisation Committee taken on the basis of the casting vote of the Leader of the House—a Minister of the Crown— because she was unable to secure the support of any other party. We are being asked to consider a structure that has no nominations from these Benches, no nominations from the Conservatives, no nominations from Plaid Cymru, from the Scottish Nationalists or from independent Members of the House, because only the Labour party believed in the way these Committees were to be set up. We argued that they should be set up on a different basis. We argued—the Deputy Leader of the House was sensible and honest enough to say that this was a difference between us, which we have and will continue to have—that the people nominated to serve on these Select Committees should represent the political will of the regions they serve.
	In one sense that is a political argument insofar as we wanted to reflect the political outcome of elections, but it is also an argument in favour of accountability. Without it, we cannot reflect the regions in the appointment of Members of this House to the Committees. Let us look at the most glaring examples. Some aspects disadvantage the Labour party: in some regions, there is an argument for having more Labour Members than are proposed in the motions. That would apply in several regions, but let me start with the south-west, as it is my region and I know it best, but also because it provides the most glaring example of the inadequacy of the Government's proposals.
	The Government propose having five Labour Members in order to give the Labour party a majority in the south-west region and the west country, but does Labour represent the majority of seats in the west country? No. Does it represent the second largest party in the region? No. It is the third party in the south-west with just 13 seats in comparison with the Liberal Democrats' 16 seats and the Conservatives' 22. If the composition of the south-west region were properly arrived at, there would be four Conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and two Labour Members, yet we are to have five Labour Members, all serving mainly city constituencies, so they are not even capable of properly representing the different areas in the south-west.
	As was mentioned earlier, if we were to appoint a Liberal Democrat on the south-west regional Committee, he or she would have to come from Cornwall—if Cornwall were to be represented at all. Somerset might well not be represented because there are three Liberal Democrats there. What is absolutely certain is that for Cornwall to be represented, there would be no representation for the constituencies of Somerset and Frome, Taunton, Yeovil, Mid-Dorset and North Poole, Bristol, West, Northavon, Cheltenham, Bath, North Devon, Torbay or Teignbridge. None of the Members from those constituencies could possibly serve on the Committee in order for Cornwall to be represented at all because of the five Liberal Democrat Members in that county. This is not a structure that can command any respect or credibility in the south-west.

David Heath: That is true. We used to have rules about these things. We asked the Government Chief Whip for a list of PPSs, and he was not prepared to provide them. Apparently it is a secret. That may be because there are so many resignations each day that the Government cannot keep up, but the fact remains that they would not provide us with a list of the PPSs who are currently serving in the Government so that we could do our research. We had to deal with each one separately.

David Heath: If all we are doing is trying to provide democratic accountability for regional development agencies, let us do that and not go through this regional Select Committee system, which is supposed to deal with matters on a wider front; according to the Deputy Leader of the House, that is what this is all about. I must not be drawn on the functions of those Committees, because I would go wide of the motion, but I think I have made the point adequately about PPSs. It is a real concern. For that reason, if for no other, I recommend to my right hon. and hon. Friends that they not support the motions.
	It is simply unacceptable that we have these hole-and-corner Committees of Labour Members wandering around the country. They will be stuffed full of Government Members pretending to scrutinise our regional structures, but not doing so effectively—a cabal that will have no credibility, either in the House or outside, and no accountability, because it will not represent the wider region that it is purporting to represent.
	It is a meaningless innovation that the Government are pushing ahead with without consensus, because they do not understand consensus, and without any understanding of accountability, because they never give away a scintilla of power. They have to control everything from the centre and from the Whips Office. It will not do for this House or for the regions of this country.

Chris Bryant: There are four motions before us in this debate, and I shall deal with them in reverse order.
	Motion 16 amends the new Green Book that the House agreed on 22 January in one regard. The Green Book specifies that Department of Resources staff have the authority to administer the rules as set out in the Green Book, but that if any issue is unresolved
	"the Member may ask the Finance and Services Committee to rule".
	It also says that the Finance and Services Committee
	"will agree Practice Notes which will be used by the Department in administering the rules".
	In the debate on 22 January, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff), who is not in his place at present, asked whether this should not be altered in the light of the fact that on that same day we changed the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances into a formal Committee of the House, with a clear remit to look at every aspect of Members' allowances.
	On reflection, I believe that the Chairman of the 1922 Committee was right, for two reasons. First, as hon. Members will know, although the House of Commons Commission, chaired by the Speaker, is the overall supervisory body for the administration of the House, the House's expenditure is divided between two accounts, or estimates—to use the parliamentary jargon. The first, the Administration estimate, covers the costs of administration of the House. The second, the Members estimate, covers MPs' pay and allowances. Our Standing Orders state that the Finance and Services Committee oversees the Administration estimate and the Members Estimate Committee oversees, naturally enough, the Members estimate. As the Finance and Services Committee has no remit under Standing Orders to look at the Members Estimate, which includes allowances, it seems wrong for it to have this new role in adjudicating on issue relating to Members' allowances.
	Secondly, having just created the new Committee on Members' Allowances, it clearly makes sense to give it the full responsibility for these issues, and that is precisely what motion 16 does. That in no respect alters the duties, powers or responsibilities of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, nor of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards as set out in out Standing Orders. I hope that the Chairman of the Committee on Standards and Privileges will be content that the relationship between the two Committees will not leave hon. Members open to double jeopardy, or lead to the danger that the House cannot administer its discipline properly.
	The other motions before us are also straightforward. Motion 15 would put the Chairman of the Committee on Members' Allowances on the Liaison Committee—a matter that I have discussed with the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, the Father of the House. Motions 13 and 14 would provide for the Chairman of the Committee to be paid, in common with all other Chairmen of Select Committees, other than the regional Committees, whose Chairmen will not be paid. I hope that the motions can be carried with little further ado.

Hugo Swire: I have no desire for the hon. Gentleman to be dazzled by my halo, but as the chairman of the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art, I can tell him that there are some Committees of which it is a great honour to be Chairman and in which we are not remunerated at all.

fees and charges

official statistics

mandates of eu special representatives

Brian Iddon: I am grateful for that intervention; it is a story that has been told to me. Indeed, these two gentleman who are interested in military history made a one-hour film about a solider—not like the one I am talking about this evening—who went through the tragedies of world war one. It is a brilliant film that ought to have a wider showing than it has hitherto.
	We want Jimmy to be remembered, along with his comrades, every year on Remembrance day. Jimmy was Charles Sandbach's paternal grandmother's uncle and Charles initially sought the help of my friend Councillor Frank White, former Member of Parliament for Bury and Radcliffe, who is currently president of the Bolton United Veteran's Association, formed in 1906 before the British Legion was established, the second of many such associations to be formed that still exist today.
	Private James Smith was the subject of a play, "Early One Morning", written by Bolton playwright Les Smith and presented at the Octagon theatre in Bolton, with its first performance on 22 October 1998 to mark the 80th anniversary of the armistice. James Smith initially enlisted in the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers in 1910, just before his 19th birthday, to escape the grinding poverty in which he lived at that time. Although he hardly knew his father, James William Smith, who remarried, Jimmy enlisted using his father's address in Noble street.
	2022 Private James Smith trained in Egypt, then served in Karachi, India, before being recalled when world war one was declared. Among his many horrific experiences of that war was the Lancashire landing on W beach at Gallipoli on the morning of 25 April 1915, when his battalion stormed a cliff bristling with Turkish machine guns. No fewer than six of his comrades won Victoria crosses before breakfast—still an all-time record for such awards. In scaling and taking that cliff, half the battalion were lost on that day.
	After enduring the rest of that nightmare campaign, Private James Smith was evacuated in 1916 to France, where he joined volunteers in the 15th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, known as the Salford pals. With one good conduct badge at that time, he was soon in the thick of the action again and gained a second good conduct badge. Such were the losses on the Somme that infantrymen were regularly transferred from one regiment to another, and Jimmy was transferred to the 17th Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment, known as the 1st Liverpool pals, on 26 June 1917, with the rank of lance corporal. He almost lost his life in France on the Somme when, on 11 October 1916, a massive German artillery shell buried him alive on the Transloy ridge, with bits of his friends around him, and shrapnel created a large deep wound on his right shoulder. According to his sister, it was big enough to put a fist in. Fortunately, he was rescued and taken home to Townleys hospital in Bolton, but in a very poor mental and physical state from which he never recovered. The shocks and horrors of the battles that he had seen had damaged him to such an extent that he was clearly unfit for further service. Those who served with him were well aware of his condition. Today, we would recognise that Jimmy Smith was suffering from serious post-traumatic stress disorder. No such condition was recognised in the great war, and it was believed that soldiers could recover from shell shock of that kind.
	Just 10 days after he returned to the front line, and clearly under a great deal of stress, Jimmy Smith volunteered to give up his stripe and became 52929 Private James Smith. Six days later, he left his post without orders. On 29 December 1916, Jimmy found himself before a field general court martial for a breach of military discipline. He was ordered to do 90 days' field punishment number one and lost one of his good conduct badges. On 15 July 1917, just before the battle of Passchendaele in the Ypres salient, he found himself before a field general court martial for a second time for going absent without leave. He was only 26 years old.
	We believe that the court recognised that Private James Smith was in no condition to fight. It spared him a death sentence on that second occasion and ordered him again to do 90 days' field punishment number one, and he lost his second good conduct badge. Unfortunately, the Army never allowed Jimmy to complete that sentence, because the 17th Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment found itself at the Pilckem ridge, north of the famous town of Ypres. By that time, Jimmy Smith was so unwell that he could not function properly at the front, and his comrades knew it. They tried to ensure that he was given light duties, possibly out of the trenches, but to no avail.
	On 30 July 1917, on the eve of the battle of Pilckem ridge, Jimmy had a breakdown and deserted his post without orders again. At 11 pm, he was seen 5 miles from the front, wandering about in the town of Poperinghe, where he was arrested. A doctor at a dressing station declared him fit for duty, and Jimmy was charged with desertion. While detained in the military cells at Poperinghe town hall, Jimmy was ordered to undertake a two-hour drill. He refused to march and was also charged with disobedience. That was the beginning of the end of Private James Smith. The plain fact is that at that time he should have not been in action but serving his third punishment.
	On 22 August 1917, Jimmy found himself before a field general court martial for the third time in seven months. Major Watson, Lieutenant Pierce and Lieutenant Collins came to a unanimous verdict of guilty on both charges. At his trial, he was unrepresented, no defence witnesses were called and he never spoke a word. Jimmy accepted his fate without fear as he was sentenced to death. The court was well aware of his medical history and could have decided to transfer him to the Labour Corps, but no; instead, it decided to make an example of an experienced regular soldier, clearly suffering from serious shell shock having experienced horrors in several battles. The brigadier confirmed sentence on 22 August, the divisional commander on 28 August and the commander-in-chief Field Marshal Haig on 2 September.
	Early on the morning of 5 September, a small patrol of soldiers from Jimmy's own unit entered a barn at Kemmel Château in Belgium to clean their weapons prior to re-engagement with the enemy. They were told that, first, they had a special duty to perform, and they were taken outside into a courtyard where they found their friend, Jimmy Smith, blindfolded and tied to an execution chair in front of a wall, with a white target pinned to his tunic, just above his heart. Protesting furiously to the commanding officer, the 12-man firing squad—11 privates and a non-commissioned officer—was summarily ordered to execute Jimmy. The lads aimed and fired, the majority deliberately missing the target. However, Jimmy was wounded, the chair was knocked over and he lay writhing in agony on the ground.
	The young officer in charge of the firing squad was shaking like a leaf, but he knew now that he had to finish Jimmy off by putting a bullet through his brain with his Webley pistol. He lost his nerve, however, and could not fire the pistol in his hand as Jimmy continued to writhe in agony on the ground.
	One of Jimmy's friends, 23643 Private Richard Blundell, who hailed from Everton in Liverpool, was then ordered by the commanding officer to take the Webley pistol and kill Jimmy. Jimmy's death was recorded on that day at 5.51 am. The 12 members of the firing squad were given 10 days' leave after that tragic event in the heat of battle. That was unusual.
	Richard Blundell died in Liverpool 70 years later in February 1989, when he was well into his 90s. As he fell in and out of consciousness, his son William heard him utter the words, "What a way to get leave." Eventually the story that I have just told about Jimmy's execution emerged, and Richard Blundell's final request to his son was to seek forgiveness from Jimmy Smith's family for what he had done. His action on that morning in September 1917 had clearly been on his mind for 70 years. It was the first time that his family can recall his speaking of his experiences in the great war. The author of a book on the Liverpool pals had tried unsuccessfully to interview him about his experiences. In my view, Dickie Blundell also faced a life sentence, perhaps worse than the fate of Private James Smith—we will never know.
	For a long time after the great war of 1914-18, shame hung over the families of soldiers such as Private James Smith and their names were not added to those of their comrades on our war memorials or rolls of honour, or written into our books of remembrance. However, Mrs. Freda Hargreaves has told me that her family felt no shame and that they proudly owned a photograph of Jimmy, which stood over the mantelpiece for many years after the war ended.
	After a long campaign, the Labour Government pardoned those soldiers who were shot at dawn, like Private James Smith in 1917. An amendment to the Armed Forces Bill was introduced in the autumn of 2006 to pardon 306 soldiers, and the measure received Royal Assent on 8 November 2006. I am pleased that several colleagues who played an important role in bringing that about are present in the Chamber, and I thank them for being here.
	However, Private James Smith's name has still not been added to the book of remembrance in Bolton town hall, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary believes that it now should be. I believe that Jimmy Smith was the only soldier from Bolton to be shot at dawn in the great war. At least today we have recognised him for what he obviously was—by no means a coward, but an extremely brave soldier who was made seriously ill by his traumatic experiences in several battles in the great war. He is buried in the military cemetery at Kemmel Château in Belgium in grave M.25. On the grave are the words, "Gone but not forgotten". I hope that he will always be remembered by the people of Bolton and that his bravery will finally be recognised. In a different way, he also paid the ultimate price for the rest of us. He, too, laid down his life for our freedom, albeit in a different way.
	As a footnote, I can tell my hon. Friend that tomorrow evening I expect that Bolton council will agree to add Private James Smith's name to the roll of honour, and that a ceremony will be held later this year. We have suggested that an appropriate date would be 27 June, which is armed services day.
	Bolton council has let it be known that it is prepared to add any other names to its roll of honour that have been missing to date for any reason. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that all local authorities should be encouraged to follow suit.

Kevan Jones: I will of course follow your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my hon. Friend has raised an interesting point. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East said that he would send copies of the report of tonight's debate to schools, with the aim of communicating the facts to future generations, and my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine) has spoken of veterans visiting schools to pass on their memories.
	In Fromelles in northern France, the graves of 400 British and Australian soldiers were recently discovered. A project is now under way, involving the Australian Government and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to recover, identify where possible and rebury those remains in the first newly created CWGC cemetery since the second world war. That has stimulated a great deal of interest, not just in this country but, according to my Australian counterparts, in Australia as well.
	Increased participation not just in the educational projects that have been mentioned tonight but in genealogy means that many relatives are researching their family histories and uncovering facts surrounding their forebears for the first time. Some of those discoveries have been disturbing, revealing executions during the first world war.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East pointed out, some of the relatives knew the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths, and certainly did not see them as a cause for shame or any stain on the character of their families. However, I hope that the granting of the statutory pardon in November 2006 has ensured that relatives who did feel shame have experienced some relief, and have recognised that no shame attaches to any of the individuals who were executed or their families. The stigma of dishonour should have been well and truly lifted.
	Those executions were tragic episodes, but, as the hon. Member for Thurrock pointed out, they must be set against the unprecedented scale of the slaughter during the first world war. Granting the pardon may have little meaning for the individual men, but to the individual families it has meant a great deal.
	Thankfully, public perception has changed. That is why, when we introduced the pardon in 2006, it was broadly welcomed by most individuals, although I recognise the strong disagreements that there have been about the issue over many years.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East has said, Private Smith is officially commemorated by his headstone in Kemmel Chateau military cemetery. His name also appears on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission "Debt of Honour" register. Additionally, there are symbolic wooden stakes set around the "Shot at Dawn" memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, Staffordshire. Those bear the names of British or Commonwealth servicemen executed during the first world war. I was privileged in January to visit that memorial. I recommend that hon. Members who have not had a chance visit the National Memorial Arboretum. The "Shot at Dawn" memorial is a simple but moving memorial. Private Smith is among those individuals who are commemorated there.
	The Cenotaph, the nation's war memorial, bears only the inscription "The Glorious Dead" and the dates of the two world wars. No distinction is made in respect of race, gender, colour, creed, or place or circumstances of death of those whom it commemorates. So, too, in the thousands of cemeteries and memorials across the world, without distinction, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission officially commemorates all the men and women who died in the service of Britain and her empire during the first world war. Many do not appreciate that, from the outset, those who were executed by firing squad, were commemorated equally with their comrades who died in other circumstances during the first world war. The commission provided identical graves and appropriate headstones for their graves. Some of those graves were lost later.
	While commending any initiative that commemorates the sacrifices of those who served in Her Majesty's armed forces, it is important to understand that, beyond the official commemoration to mark a serviceman's final resting place, the Government do not have responsibility for either the funding or maintenance of many memorials such as the one at Bolton town hall. As my hon. Friend and many hon. Members know, there are around 70,000 war memorials in the United Kingdom and they take a wide variety of forms, including books, to which my hon. Friend referred, windows, lichgates, playing fields and buildings—even hospitals, chapels and community halls.
	I know that the names of many of those executed men have already been added to many local war memorials as a result of local pressure or family initiatives. I think that that is appropriate; those individuals should be added to those local memorials. I fully support the inclusion of Private Smith's name in his local book of remembrance and I am very pleased to hear that Bolton council will agree tomorrow to add Private James Smith's name to that roll of honour. It is a fitting tribute that his name will be added to the roll of honour. My hon. Friend has paid him a great tribute tonight by speaking about him many years after his death and by putting him on the record of the House, so that future generations can not only read the debate but ensure that we do not forget about brave individuals such as Private Smith.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.